Challenging The Top Card
by dearjoan
Summary: Can the Rangers defeat an enemy who has the power to turn them against one another?


"Challenging The Top Card"   
By Kellyanne Lynch   
circa 1993, 1994  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, not do I even know what happens in the show past the original series. Other characters besides the rangers that belong to Saban are: Zordon, Bulk, Skull, Rita, Finster, Ernie, and Alpha. Kelly is me, and Colleen is my little sister. The villain - Commander Ace Poker - appears courtesy of my early high school short stories, the Commander Ace Poker series, and of my novel "The Notorious Commander Ace Poker". Poker's card soldiers also come from these works.  
  
FYI: I wrote this story at VERY least seven years ago; it's from when I was a freshman in high school. The maroon ranger is me, and the purple ranger is my sister Colleen. My animal is the brontosaurus, and hers is the stegosaurus. I'm posting my little fantasy, because I find it kinda funny and thought that somebody else might enjoy reading it. I'm transcribing it from its handwritten form exactly how I see it.   
  
Summary: There is a poker tourniment in Angel Grove, and Kim, Zack, and Colleen enter it, but Rita has plans of her own. She sends out Commander Ace Poker and his card soldiers who have the power to turn any of the Power Rangers against all the others. Can the Rangers defeat Commander Poker without turning against each other? Find out in "CHALLENGING THE TOP CARD"...  
  
Rating: PG  
  
* Please e-mail matchbox20orbusted@yahoo.com with questions, comments, theories, complaints, or words of wisdom.  
  
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It was a warm day when Angel grove decided to hold its poker championship which Kim, Colleen, and Zack would enter. They had been looking forward to the day which finally came.  
  
"Kim!" Zack was late to the youth center where the match would be held, but the game hadn't begun yet. "Colleen!"  
  
"Hi, Zack!" Kim smiled.  
  
"Hey!" Colleen greeted him.  
  
"Good luck today!" Zack went on.  
  
"Hey, you too!" Colleen replied.  
  
"I hope we all have good luck!" Kim noticed two people walk in. "Look at our competition!" she pointed to the two, and Colleen and Zack looked over.  
  
"So, what's the prize?" Bulk asked one of the judges.  
  
"Ya, what's the prize?" Skull repeated.  
  
"We're giving a scholarship to the winner," the judge replied, "and we're giving them this." The judge held up a golden square which had a joker imprinted into it.  
  
"So that's what I'm winning!" Bulk smiled.  
  
"Ya, that's what he's getting!" Bulk rolled his eyes at Skull. "Let's go see our opponents!" Skull suggested, and the two wandered over to Kim, Zack, and Colleen.  
  
"What do we have here?" Bulk looked over at the three.  
  
"Hi, Kim!" Skull gave Kim a dumb look.  
  
"Go away!" Kim stepped back.  
  
"When we win, we'll give you the golden card!"  
  
"No, we won't!" Bulk disagreed. "That's for me!"  
  
"Welcome everybody to Angel Grove's first poker tourniment!" the announcer began the match. "We will start with our first four contestants. They will compete until one person has won three hands. Then that person will become a finalist and play against the other finalists from the other groups at the end. There are sixteen contestants..."  
  
"Hi, guys!" Jason ran up the three with Trini, Billy, and Kelly behind him. "Sorry we're late!"  
  
"That's okay!" Colleen smiled. "It just started."  
  
"And now for our first four contestants!" the announcer went on. "David, Kim, Bulk, and Marie."  
  
The four of them got to the front of the room and sat at the table.  
  
"I'm gonna cream ya!" Bulk threatened as he sat down.  
  
"Ya!" Skull stood behind him. "We're gonna cream ya!"  
  
"I'm sorry, but only the four I called may be at the table," the announcer spoke. "You'll have to leave the table."  
  
"Good luck, Bulk!" Skull went back into the audience.  
  
"Good luck, Kim!" the six remaining Mighty Morphin Power Rangers called.  
  
"So!" Rita observed. "They like poker! I'll give them poker! Finster, make me a monster!"   
  
"I have precisely the right one!" Finster picked up a clay model. "This is Commander Ace Poker. We can make the Putty Patrol into his card soldiers, and the Power Rangers can play a life-sized game of poker!"  
  
"Excellent!" Rita smiled. "But what does he do?"  
  
"Anyone he touches instantly becomes a card soldier!"  
  
"Perfect! Send him down to Earth!"  
  
The first match was running long for Bulk was caught cheating so often. When he was finally disqualified, the game went faster.  
  
"You guys, I'm going to get us all sodas," Jason offered. "Stay right here; I'll be back!" Jason went over to the juice bar where Ernie was.  
  
"Hi, Jason," Ernie didn't sound too happy.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"Everyone wants drinks, and I ran out of syrup for the machines! If you want drinks, you'll have to go across the street."  
  
"Thanks, Ernie!" Jason went off.  
  
"Red Ranger's all alone!" Rita saw him. "Send out Commander Poker and the card soldiers!"  
  
Commander Poker and the card soldiers appeared in Jason's path. Jason tried using his communicator.  
  
"Zordon! Zordon, do you read me?"  
  
"Jason! What is wrong?"  
  
"There's..." Commander Poker touched Jason's shoulder, and Jason disappeared.  
  
"Where'd he go?" Rita shrieked when she saw Jason disappeared. Jason appeared before Rita.  
  
"He got transported here!" Finster said needlessly. "He's now under Poker's command!"  
  
"Send him back out on the other Rangers!"  
  
"Yes, my wicked queen!"  
  
Ten minutes passed, and Jason wasn't back.  
  
"Where's Jason?" Kim had just won the first match.  
  
"Haven't seen him," Kelly shook her head. "He left a while ago to get us sodas, and he hasn't come back yet."  
  
"Next contestants will be Myriah, James, Jordan, and Melissa!" the announcer called off the next four names right before the Rangers' communicators went off.  
  
"Let's go!" Zack suggested. They left the room and transported to the Command Center.  
  
"Rangers," Zordon spoke to them. "Jason has disappeared, and there is a new monster of Rita's out there. Observe the Viewing Globe."  
  
The Rangers turned to the Viewing Globe where they saw Commander Ace Poker and the card soldiers in the middle of Angel Grove. People were running away from the card soldiers as Commander Poker just stood there.  
  
"Why isn't he doing anything?" Trini asked.  
  
"How did Jason just disappear?" Billy asked. "That is physically impossible to do so!"  
  
"I do not know the answers to your questions," Zordon answered, "but you must defeat Commander Poker and the card soldiers before it's too late."  
  
"It's Morphin time!" Zack spoke up.  
  
"Macadon!"  
  
"Pteridactol!"  
  
"Stegasaurus!"  
  
"Triceritops!"  
  
"Brontosaurus!"  
  
"Saber-toothed tiger!"  
  
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers appeared at the scene where Commander Poker had been not long ago, but no one was in sight when the Rangers got there.  
  
"Where is everyone?" Billy asked.  
  
"This is so totally weird!" Kim commented.  
  
"There's a note!" Colleen noticed a note that was pinned to a telephone pole with a red dart. "'Dear Rangers, You aren't as good at poker as you thought you knew the top card, but you never met me! Your top card is with me now, and I don't think you want him back. From THE top card, Commander Ace Poker.' What are we gonna do?"  
  
"Let's go see Zordon," Trini suggested right before Commander Poker and his card soldiers showed up.  
  
"King of Spades, come forward!" Commander Poker called.  
  
When the nonputty stepped forward, the Power Rangers were shocked when they saw who he was.  
  
"Jason!" they all exclaimed.  
  
"Yes! I told you that you wouldn't want him back!"  
  
"We can't fight Jason!" Trini shook her head.  
  
"Then fight WITH him!" Commander Poker touched Trini's shoulder, and she disappeared.  
  
"Now we have Yellow Ranger!" Rita smiled. "Send her against her friends!"  
  
Trini appeared next to Jason in a similar uniform.  
  
"Now I have my queen of diamonds!" Poker laughed.  
  
Just then, Jason and Trini attacked the remaining five Rangers.  
  
"We need to do something!" Zack exclaimed.  
  
"Alpha!" Zordon spoke to Alpha when he realized the Rangers were in trouble. "Bring the Rangers back here!" All seven Rangers were transported back to the command center.  
  
"Rangers, go back and fight Poker..."  
  
"They will NOT fight our master!" Jason protested.   
  
"We shall fight THEM!"  
  
Billy, Zack, Kim, Colleen, and Kelly were transported back to the place where Poker was before Jason and Trini could attack them again.  
  
"We need Dinosaur Power now!"  
  
The dinosaurs came, but without the Saber-toothed tiger and Tyrannosaurus, they weren't as powerful.  
  
"Kelly!" Billy suggested. "Try your whistle! Poker might not be made of clay!"  
  
Kelly blew her whistle. The high-pitched noise hurt the Rangers' ears, but it didn't affect Command Poker.  
  
"He's clay!" Kelly concluded, disappointed. "We really need Jason and Trini!"  
  
"But you don't have them!" Poker laughed. "I do!"  
  
"Where does that guy get his power?" Zack wondered aloud.  
  
"Ranger!" Zordon answered Zack's question over the communicator. "Commander Poker gets his power from a card which is a red joker. If yu can get it, he will no longer have control over Trini and Jason."  
  
"Is that it on the ground?" Colleen noticed the joker by Poker's foot.  
  
"I'll get it!" Kim, in her Pteridactol, swooped down and picked up the card. She flew off with it and was transported to the Command Center, her Pteridactol going back where it had come. "I have the card, Zordon!"  
  
"Excellent work, Kim!"  
  
"What's going on?" Trini asked when the spell was broken.  
  
"Why are we wearing these?" Jason studied the card soldier uniform he wore.  
  
"You're needed right now to fight one of Rita's monsters!" Zordon spoke.  
  
"It's Morphin time!" Jason called.  
  
"Saber-toothed tiger!"  
  
"Tyrannosaurus!"  
  
They appeared at the sight with Kim.  
  
"We need Dinosaur Power now!" the Pteridactol, Saber-toothed tiger, and Tyrannosaurs came to them.  
  
"Saber-toothed tiger, on line!"  
  
"Tyrannosaurus, ready for action!"  
  
"Let's topple these cards!"  
  
"Good to have you back!" Colleen's voice was heard over the communicators.  
  
"Think it's time we get together!" Zack suggested.  
  
"Power up your Power Crystals!" Jason called as he did so.  
  
"Two, one, power up!"  
  
The five original dinosaurs became the Megazord.  
  
"We need our Megaswords!" the Stegasaurus and Brontosaurus became the Megaswords which the Megazord held in its hands.  
  
"Make my monster grow!" Rita yelled as she threw her wand down to the Earth. Commander Poker grew, and the card soldiers disappeared.  
  
The Rangers were able to strike the monster down quickly.  
  
"No!" Rita had been defeated again, but the Rangers knew she'd be back for she always was.  
  
The Rangers decided to go back to the poker tourniment, but no one but Ernie was there. He was cleaning off the food which was all over the Youth Center.  
  
"What happened?" Trini asked.  
  
"Bulk started a food fight when he lost. The poker tourniment is post-poned to tomorrow. Kim, you don't have to play again; only the last three groups are."  
  
The next day, the poker tourniment was held, and Colleen won allaround against Kim, Zack and a boy named James.  
  
"Great job, Colleen!" Kim smiled.  
  
"Thanks!" Colleen wished Kim and Zack could have won too, but they got ribbons for being finalists.  
  
"Here is the golden card," the announcer gave Colleen the golden joker. "Outstanding! The finalists did great, too!"  
  
"This card," Colleen held up the golden joker, "will always remind me of Poker!"  
  
The announcer smiled for he did not understand what Colleen had said the same way that the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers did.  
  
THE END  



End file.
